San Francisco California - Bob James (42) has been crabbing in the San Francisco Bay ever since he was a young boy. But nothing prepared him for the fish he brought up in a crab pot on January 3rd. A fish that had an inscription on it's side, written in Latin!

Bob James, who found the freaky fish.

"Me and my partner Ted drop about 200 pots a night when the season starts in November," said James. "I go and check them at dawn and sell off the Dungeness (crabs) to the tourist restaurants up around pier 39 and 41. We get a fish caught in there now and then, the smell of the bait draws them into the traps same as the crabs and they get stuck. Well the sun had just broken over the hills when I found this one in my second row of pots. He was a small Sea Bass and I was about to throw him back when I noticed what was on the side of it."

What was on the side turned out to be an inscription in an unknown language.

"It looked like writing to me but neither one of us knew what it was," said James. "I thought it was weird but I had to keep working so I threw it down in the boat. I showed it around to some of the chefs who buy at the pier but nobody knew what it said. We even tried rubbing it off but it was on there good. Finally somebody said I should take it down to the museum at the Cannery and see what they thought of it."

The Latin Fish

Sharon Corland is an assistant director of the City of San Francisco Museum and took charge of the fish when it was presented to the Museum.

"By the time it reached us, the fish was dead," states Corland. "I copied the inscription down and had the fish wrapped and placed in a freezer."

It took Corland only a short time to decipher the Latin writing. It is 'I Tego Arcana Dei,' which means, roughly, 'I conceal the secrets of God.' Interestingly this phrase has a significance in other Freaky happenings such as the meaning behind Nicholas Poussin's painting "The Shepherds of Arcadia" and the Mystery of Rennes-Le-Chateau

A similar phrase appears on Poussin's, "The Shepherd's of Arcadia"

But why or how did this get on the side of a fish caught in San Francisco Bay?

"I have no idea but I'm guessing it's a prank," says Corland. "Somebody may have painted this on the side of 100 fish and let them go, hoping somebody would catch it and wonder what was going on, which is just what we are doing. Whoever did it used some kind of chemical that looks to have etched the phrase into the scales. At the very least they should be arrested for animal cruelty."

The fish remains the property of the City Museum who is still considering what to do with it. It is not currently on display. No one has claimed responsibility for the writing and no other fish have been caught with Latin on them.

sources

"An Unusual Fish Story" San Francisco Herald, January 5th, 2000

phone interview with Bob James, January 9th, 2000

phone interview with Sharon Coreland January 8th, 2000

photo of fish courtesy of the San Francisco Herald